Vicente “Ka Vic” Arraya Fabe

(11 September 1956 – 02 March 2015)

Vicente Fabe, known as Ka Vic to many of his colleagues in the farmers’ movement, has been with several farmer groups for almost three decades. Ka Vic has actively participated in numerous activities and organizations that aim to uplift the lives of the small men and women farmers.

Ka Vic hails from Tabugon, Calaug, Quezon, and nowpart of Sta. Elena, Camarines Norte. Ka Vic holds a degree in B.S. Marine Transportation from PMI College, Arroceros, Manila (1981). But instead of working in the shipping industry, he opted to help his parents work in the family’s farm. He and his family grow rice, coconut, eggplants, calamansi (Philippine lemon) among others, using sustainable, integrated, diversified farming systems taught by his parents and learned from various seminars and training workshops he has attended as member and leader of the Pambansang Kilusan ng mga Samahang Magsasaka or PAKISAMA, since the organization’s founding in 1986.

Ka Vic is Chair of the Coconut Industry Reform Movement (COIR) and of the Coconut Cluster of the Farmers Sector of the National Anti Poverty Commission (NAPC). As such, he was recognized as one of the, if not thekey, farmer leaders that led the struggle to recover the coconut levy funds. In one of the media campaigns, he challenged Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco, the main architect of the multi-billion-peso coco levy scam,to prove that he is a coconut farmer byclimbing the coconut tree infront of the Philippine Coconut Authority. Danding was of course a no-show, and Ka Vic climbed the tree infront of the media.

Ka Vic was Chairperson of the Pambansang Kilusan ng mga Samahang Magsasaka or PAKISAMA (a national confederation of farmers/fishers/indigenous peoples’ movement in the Philippines) in 2006-2013. As Chair, he participated in the crafting of the current Medium Term Philippine Development Plan and succeeded in incorporating in the final draft the target of the Aquino administration to finish the delineation of all the 928 municipal waters in the country by 2016, to directly benefit 1.4 million marginal fisher families who suffer from hunger and injustice due to unabated incursion of big commercial fishing vessels into the municipal waters.

As the longest-standing member of the Executive Committee of the Asian Farmers Association for Sustainable Rural Development (AFA) from 2004 till 2013, his principles and skills in coalition work helped position AFA in many networking activities as well as helped AFA decide soundly on many of its organizational matters. He also participated in major regional and international conferences either as a delegate or as a speaker, bringing the issues, perspectives and recommendations of Filipino and Asian small-scale family farmers in the international arena.

Ka Vic was also appointed to the National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC) as a sectoral representative from 2002 – present. NAPC is a government agency that was established in 1998 primarily to strengthen the linkages between the basic sectors and the government for the purposes of the Social Reform Agenda. He also served either as a vice/chairperson, farmer representative, board member, or council member in several other government and non-government groups such as the Philippine Coconut Authority, Coordinating Council of Small Coconut Farmers, United Coconut Planters Bank, Akbayan Party List, Coconut Industry Reform Movement (COIR), National Peace Conference (NPC), Ugnayan ng mga Magsasaka Sa Quezon (UGMA), National Marketing Umbrella (NMU), KOMPIL 2 and Regional Development Council (RDC) Region IV between 1989 – 2006.

As a Barangay/Village Councilor, Ka Vic was able to experience direct governance when he was elected in 1989 inhis village. Here he was able to flex his muscles on policy and decision-making, ensuring that the people are actually benefiting from government services. He also sat in the negotiating team that engaged the Department of Budget from 1999 – 2000.

Ka Vic continuously honed his leadership and organizing skills by attending several workshops and training courses on local/corporate governance, organizational development, and on policy lobby and advocacy (media workshop/issue analysis – assessment of Agrarian Reform, etc.), to name a few.

He was among the 12 core marchers during the 40-day nationwide Great Jubilee Against Hunger march-caravan, which started in Davao City and ended in a mass at Sto Domingo Church on June 12, 2000, officiated by the late Jaime Cardinal Sin and attended by the late Cory Aquino. That march-caravan was the start of what became the RIO (Resign, Impeach, Oust) campaign against the Erap Administration culminating in People Power 2 on January 20, 2001. At the height of the CARPER Campaign, he was the farmer leader representative who joined the hunger strike with Bishop Pabillo and others in mid 2009. He was also among a few farmer leaders who were thrown out of Congress when they ran in front of the Congress hall and successfully took a microphone from a congressman to protest the refusal of Congress to deliberate the scheduled CARPER bill. A few months after, he got himself arrested in front of the gate of the Lower House of Congress for being among the leaders of the siege. A hundred farmers joined him in the police station that night who were all eventually released the next day.

Unmindful of his noticeable sluggishness in walking and speaking because of a mild stroke three years ago, he waged together with his colleagues in the Coconut Industry Reform Movement and the NAPC coconut cluster an intense campaign to recover the coco levy fund culminating in the latest successful 71-day march of 71 farmers coming from nine national farmers federations and two NGOs composing KILUS Magniniyog, from Davao City to Malacanang. He was last seen by many colleagueson February 25, 2015 in the National Irrigation Authority building participating in the 3rd National Coconut Farmers Conference where Senator Kiko Pangilinan announced it would only be a few more days when the Executive Order establishing the Coconut Farmers Trust Fund beginning with the recovered 71 billion peso coco levy fund would eventually be signed by the President.

He was having his nap in the afternoon of March 2, 2015, and did not awake. He had a heart attack. He was 58 years old.

He is survived by his wife, Ate Lourdes, his 5 children (Lovie May, 32; Lovie Jane, 28; Jp, 26; Florencio, 23; and Lv March, 21)and 3grandchildren (Frenshkrisna, John Terrence, Jeah Albriz).

Many colleagues in the farmers’ movement in the Philippines have seen him grow from a young shy farmer in the late 1980's to a highly respected, highly admired,staunch, fearless leader of the farmers' movement in the Philippines.He has been a great inspiration to many fellow farmers, students and social development workers, government workers and officers. He thinks sharply, argues soundly, and composesand recites poems spontaneously.Despite his various positions in government and CSO coalitions as farmer representative, he has remained simple, humble, honest, approachable, persistent, unwavering and committed to the cause, always eager to serve and to improve his service for his fellow farmers, and always ready to flash his contagious smile. As a farmer leader, he has led many of PAKISAMA's campaigns on land and fishery rights, sustainable agriculture, and significant involvement in governance processes on agriculture, gender equality, and the recovery of the coconut levy funds.

Ka Vic’s life is as colourful and challenging as the advocacies that he espoused. His death is a great loss to the movement. His life is a great source of inspiration. He will always be remembered. He will always be loved.

Pambansang Kilusan ng mga Samahang Magsasaka (PAKISAMA)

Asian Farmers Association for Sustainable Rural Development (AFA)

March 6, 2015